health. abc's matt gutman starts us off with what's happening right now, matt? >> reporter: from a boat in the mobile bay, moments ago, we learned one of the passengers aboard the ship suffered a stroke and had to be medevacked. that's not the only danger here tonight. check out the tug boats, trying to nudge that 900-foot ship inside a quarter-mile channel. veering either way and it could ground. tonight they're doing that in the dark. >> reporter: tonight, with the lame colossus finally within sight of land, we get our first look inside -- the grim ship's log. >> been shipwrecked for three days. >> reporter: the hours long lines for food, after eight full days at sea -- five of them without power and sanitation. sewage seeping down walls, and this sandaled foot testing urine soaked carpets. the images showing shanty towns that sprang up on decks -- tent cities that carnival has denied existed. outside, the 900-foot long ship

checkered with towels and bedding. some unfurling white banners. right there, above the lettering -- carnival triumph. those dressed for the tropics, huddling in bath robes and blankets against the cold. the ship has been tugging 350 miles from the gulf of mexico at a pace about as fast as you can walk. until? >> i think the tug line might have broken. carnival's terry thornton said today the company's doing all it can. >> there is no way we can actually speed up the process to get the ship alongside sooner. >> reporter: misery tempered by joy today. choppered in generators, charging cellphones. the voices of loved ones, finally in range. and remember mary? >> she said, mommy, i'm afraid i won't ever get to see you again. >> reporter: so worried about her daughter. today they spoke. >> it was amazing. the things that she saw and the things we talked about, those things were really happening. why? why were they not prepared?

>> reporter: we tried to take that question to carnival's chief marketing officer -- instead of answering questions, he retreated. as did the senior vice president thornton. >> thank you for taking the time today. but i wonder if you could take a few more questions -- do you really -- and this eight-day odyssey could easily slip into its ninth. this ship won't reach port until about midnight. carnival says it could take five more hours to unload some very weary passengers. >> thanks so much, matt. and i had a chance to talk to some of those passengers as they phoned up with harrowing stories. tell me how are you right now. >> i'm going along, on the edge here. one of my friends is really, really sick. >> is it serious? what's happened? >> she's got respiratory, sinus issues because we had to sleep outside. we had nowhere else to go. >> what's the condition of your room? >> we had to abandon it on the

first day. we had sewage coming in the bathroom. the smell was horrific. there's no ac. we have not eaten a hot meal yet. >> so you have two twin boys? 11-year-old boys? >> i do, i do. and i miss them so much. so john, you've sent us some pictures. where are those mattresses, out on the deck or what? >> there are mattresses everywhere, some on deck. a lot of those are in the elevator walkways. because it got so cold last night. they moved all of the mattresses and things from the outside to the inside. the boat was listing in the direction that made the plumbing drop and the raw sewage go about an inch into the room. after the first 12 hours and the pump shut down so they couldn't

pump the sewage and the plumbing, they issued red bags. we had buckets where you would urinate in. it is reiterated to wash your hands and we've never been out of fresh water, i must say. and also there are tons of disinfectant stations with hand sanitizers everywhere. >> and we've heard doctors on board the ship have been saying to everyone, be sure to keep washing your hands. they do have water for that and also use hand sanitizer. and abc news will be there throughout this night as the passengers come ashore. now we move on to another big headline today about the price of your home. a ray of light. there are new signs tonight that after six long years, the foreclosure crisis may be ending. at its peak, 367,000 homes in foreclosure. today, less than half that. and david muir is here with the news for your neighborhood. >> about time, right? this is a huge drop tonight in foreclosures across the country.

home values on the rise. the housing market slowly recovering. tonight what we didn't know. what's suddenly driving that drop in foreclosures? >> reporter: it is a stunning drop in foreclosures. the number of treasured homes slipping away from american families -- dropping to its lowest level in six years. down 28% across the nation a year ago. foreclosures down to an eye-popping 65% in california. and it turns out a new law in california is helping to boost housing numbers across the country tonight. suze orman quick to point out to us today. the banks there, pushed to do something else. finally allowing homeowners to avoid foreclosure -- with what's called a short sale. and here's how it works. >> you owe $200,000, but your house is only worth $150,000. >> reporter: only worth 150,000 and the banks finally letting you sell for that. >> reporter: do you still owe $50 grand though? >> you're not still left with it, they wipe it off the board. >> reporter: the change comes too late for stephanie walker. she and her husband, bob, right

before the collapse, they sold their property and used the profits to buy bigger. what so many did. then, the crash. they lost work and lost their house. they moved back home with her parents in chicago, documenting it all on her blog. love in the time of foreclosure. >> hi, david. welcome to our home. >> reporter: but tonight, they're back on solid ground. and back in california. >> this is my favorite room in the house. >> this time, renting. but she admits, the low mortgage rates are so tempting. >> that is where you get yourself into trouble. the other day, i saw an open house sign and i thought, i kind of want to see that house, i want to see what it looks like inside. and my husband said no. >> reporter: he said keep driving? >> exactly. >> reporter: passing an open house even in this improving housing market. which suze says it smart. >> what do you say to stephanie about the lesson learned in all this? >> i would say live below your means but within your needs. if you can afford to buy a 3,000 square foot home, buy a 2,000

square foot home. >> reporter: what do you make of her advice? >> i think it's brilliant advice. it's hard, though. it's really hard. >> hard, but she and her family are trying. suze says that young family is smart to finish paying down their debt and rent and watch the market come back before they act. she says for families with solid jobs and have saved enough, a much different story. because of a new report, mortgage rates at historic lows. it's a good time to buy if everything else in place for you. >> thanks so much, david. >> next tonight, stunning news that one of the most inspiring athletes in the world has been charged with murder. oscar pistorius, the first double-leg amputee to compete on a track in the olympics. he's charged with shooting his girlfriend. details are still emerging and bazi kanani, our correspondent based in africa has the new from pretoria, south africa, tonight. >> there's the start! >> reporter: who would have

imagined the man who did this, could end up like this? accused of murder of his girlfriend, reeve steenkamp, a well known model in south africa, seen here in a cellphone commercial and a fixture on the red carpet. the two of them were a couple that demanded attention. pistorius lived in this luxury estate behind high walls and electric fence. here in south africa, crime is rampant and that may be one of the reasons for the rumors going around here, that he may have shot his girlfriend, mistaking her for an intruder. but police have other suspicions. they said there have been incidents in the past in the home and they received reports of neighbors hearing shouting before the shooting. >> there has previously been incidents at the home of mr. pistorius. allegations of domestic nature. >> now pistorius begins to fly. >> reporter: pistorius's story of determination is legendary, his legs amputated when he was 11 months old.

but with a pair of prosthetic blades, he was fast as lightning. >> i've been given a phenomenal talent and i work extremely hard to be where i am. >> reporter: he rose to paralympics champion and the first double amputee to compete in the olympics. but today as word of the shooting spread, this nike ad, with the words, "i am the bullet in the chamber," was taken down from his site. >> he is someone who is celebrated as a humanitarian. to be in this position, it's just shocking. >> reporter: just yesterday, steenkamp tweeted, what do you have up your sleeve for your love tomorrow? a day that would end in tragedy, leaving a world of admirers asking, how an athlete who embodied a spirit of overcoming any obstacle is now facing a murder charge? bazi kanani, abc news, pretoria, south africa. and we also have news tonight of the official

conclusion in the story we rented earlier in california. authorities have positively identified the remains of that former cop who launched a deadly rampage for ten days. christopher dorner is the charred body inside that cabin in the woods, it's now been confirmed as his. now we had to washington, because just this afternoon the president was thrown a curveball. he thought his secretary of defense nominee chuck hagel would be confirmed. but abc's chief white house correspondent tells us it didn't happen. what did? >> reporter: today was the day the president hoped he would have a new secretary of defense, but republicans blocked a straight up or down vote on his nomination. they don't like him for a lot of reasons, but their complaint today was he didn't turn over enough information on his financial disclosure forms. the white house is calling the delay uncon shonable and the president has said, it's unfortunate this kind of

politics in truth, when i'm presiding over a war in afghanistan and i need say secretary of defense. it's a delay and setback for the president, but it's not a defeat. even hagel's strongest critic in the senate, john mccain, says that he believes hagel 8 be confirmed, just not quite as soon as the president hoped. >> still the nation waiting for a big appointment. thanks so much. still ahead on "world news," all of us on this planet are about to see a close encounter. what former astronauts are doing to watch out for the planet earth tonight. i'm lorenzo. i work for 47 different companies. well, technically i work for one. that company, the united states postal service®, works for thousands of home businesses. because at usps.com®, you can pay, print and have your packages picked up for free.

i can even drop off free boxes. i wear a lot of hats. well, technically i wear one. the u.s. postal service®, no business too small. i took my son fishing every year. we had a great spot, not easy to find, but worth it. but with copd making it hard to breathe, i thought those days might be over. so my doctor prescribed symbicort. it helps significantly improve my lung function starting within five minutes. symbicort doesn't replace a rescue inhaler for sudden symptoms. with symbicort, today i'm breathing better. and that means...fish on! symbicort is for copd including chronic bronchitis and emphysema. it should not be taken more than twice a day. symbicort may increase your risk of lung infections, osteoporosis, and some eye problems. tell your doctor if you have a heart condition or high blood pressure before taking it. with copd, i thought i'd miss our family tradition. now symbicort significantly improves my lung function, starting within 5 minutes.

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bayer aspirin was the first thing the emts gave me. now, i'm on a bayer aspirin regimen. [ male announcer ] be sure to talk to your doctor before you begin an aspirin regimen. [ woman ] learn from my story. and now, all of us on this planet are on the brink of a close encounter. a big asteroid is hurdling through space and it's supposed to miss us by a cosmic inch, just 17,000 miles. that's closer than some of our weather satellites. in fact, it's so close scientists are springing into action and here's abc's neal karlinsky. >> reporter: right now while you're watching this, a chunk of space rock, big enough to level a city is hurdling towards our planet eight times faster than a speeding bullet. the good news is, scientists say it will miss. the scary news is, the 130,000 metric ton asteroid, called da-14, is the size of half a football field and it will be much closer than the moon.

it will thread the needle between earth and the roughly 600 satellites around us, the ones that your cellphone relies on, possibly smashing one to smithereens on its way by. but if that's why you're thinking this is a long way from all of us down here walking the streets, you may want to think again. the last close call turned out to be a direct hit. it was 1908 and luckily, it hit the middle of nowhere, siberia. decimating a thousand miles of trees, but no people. >> if a very large asteroid hit, it would probably create the same kind of disaster that wiped out the dinosaurs. >> reporter: amazingly, no one knew da-14 was headed our way until a spanish dentist and amateur astronomer randomly discovered it a year ago. nasa doesn't have the resources to look for asteroids. which is why a trio of american astronauts and rocket scientists are raising money to launch their own asteroid warning

system called sentinel -- a dedicated telescope scanning the stars for threats. >> this asteroid is a wake-up call. that we should be looking out there. these things do hit the earth. >> reporter: scientists say we can keep the planet safe, if we just know what's out there, headed our way. neal karlinsky, abc news, seattle. >> in the meantime, thank the dentist who spotted it. coming up next here, a kangaroo invasion on a golf course. what happened? that's next in our instant index tonight. as your life and career change, fidelity is there for your personal economy, helping you readjust your retirement plan along the way. rethink how you're invested. and refocus as your career moves forward. wherever you are today, a fidelity ira has a wide range of investment choices to help you fine-tune your personal economy. call today and we'll make it easy

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♪ feed the senses. at the top of our instant index tonight, you've heard the phrase, it's not whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game. did you see this? final jeopardy, the team tournament. here's the jeopardy clue. "on june 6, 1944, he said, 'the eyes of the world are upon you.'" the correct answer, eisenhower, to the troops of the normandy invasion. watch how leonard cooper gave his answer. >> now we go to leonard cooper. he's looking pretty happy. why? did he come up with it? you didn't. same guy in normandy, but i just won $75,000. [ laughter ] >> smart enough to know to wager only zero dollars. a high school senior from little rock, who plans to use the money on college and a car. and you've heard of a rain delay, but how about a kangaroo delay?

this was the scene at the women's australian open. a mob of kangaroos on the fairway. they are eastern gray kangaroos, seven feet tall, 120 pounds. they can jump six feet high and run 35 miles per hour. stampedes like this are on the rise in australia because of the drought there, sending the animals into human parks in search of grass and water. and meet the one man in america who is off the hook on this valentine's day. dave honeywell, he and his wife are the winners of a $217 million jackpot, and he bought the winning ticket in that richmond airport on a business trip. >> i told her, it's the best valentine's day present you're going to have. >> they both work at the defense department, get up at 4:00 a.m., commute 81 miles, and they say they're now going to retire. they're also going to retire dave's car, which is 13 years

old, and has 170,000 miles on it. and speaking of valentine's day, coming up here, is the end of loneliness just a dot away? the new way to find modern love with the perfect stranger. that's next. i wish my patients could see what i see. ♪ that over time, having high cholesterol and any of these risk factors can put them at increased risk for plaque buildup in their arteries. so it's even more important to lower their cholesterol, and that's why, when diet and exercise alone aren't enough, i prescribe crestor. in a clinical trial versus lipitor, crestor got more high-risk patients' bad cholesterol to a goal of under 100. [ female announcer ] crestor is not right for everyone. like people with liver disease or women who are nursing, pregnant or may become pregnant. tell your doctor about other medicines you're taking. call your doctor right away if you have muscle pain or weakness, feel unusually tired, have loss of appetite,

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or if you have any allergic reactions such as rash, hives, swelling of the lips, tongue or throat, or difficulty breathing or swallowing, stop taking cialis and get medical help right away. ask your doctor about cialis for daily use and a 30-tablet free trial. and finally tonight on this modern valentine's day there's a new way to find a perfect person among all the strangers. all it takes is a cellphone and a willingness to act at warp speed. abc's paula faris shows us how it works. >> are you nervous? >> a bit. >> reporter: alex pavlenko is about to go on the ultimate blind date. no friend set her up. she's trusting her smart phone

to play match maker. this is all she knows about ed. a scrambled photo. they connected through a brand new mobile app called "crazy blind date." >> hi, i'm alex. >> i'm ed. >> reporter: this is one of the ways app-happy singles are looking for love. more than 13 million a month. double the rate of a year ago. and as more people look for mr. right, right now, online dating sites are seeing fewer visitors. mobile apps like okcupid, locals, and singles around me, make instant love connections. watch. that blue dot is us. and all those red dots are potential dates within walking distance. the green dots, literally across the street. and the fastest growing -- tinder. so popular it grew 750% just last month. >> you can be dating all the time. from wherever you are. and that's really the key. >> reporter: sam yagan, ceo of "okcupid," designs apps that

deliver romance at warp speed. you just scheduled a date in 30 seconds. >> less than 30 seconds. >> i don't even have to ask her out. that's the best part. the machine did it for me. >> reporter: but can instant connections lead to lasting love? >> it went pretty well. >> reporter: but she's already logging on to locals. you literally have 100 dates in the palm of your hand. >> i do, i do. >> reporter: turns out, you can hurry love. paula faris, abc news, new york. and on this valentine's day, i ask all of you to tweet me a picture of what love means to you. i pass on some of the different faces you sent us. the love in your lives. happy valentine's day. thank you for watching. we're always working for you at abcnews.com and "nightline" will be along later at its new time, 12:35 a.m. eastern and we'll see you right back here again tomorrow night. goodnight.

tonight murder in a school yard. what we've learned about a promise young athlete. >> the bomb squad continues its work as a bay area lawmaker offers details on explicit threat ever received. >> new information about a electrical terror suspect free from jail once before. was it fair for the fbi to target anymore a bank bombing sting? >> and one billion, rising. the sheriff plays an unusual role noont a campaign against domestic violence. sky 7 hd is live overhead right now. you can see there are more than a dozen patrol cars here at the scene. >> here is where the scene is in the east. it is in east san jose near

acala avenue. now police are not giving out much information other than saying a man and woman have been shot and officer we spoke with believes they're both dead. it appears it happened in the house now roped off. >> officers patted down one man and put him in a squad car. he was not handcuffed, though. we want8n:a outside. we have seen a coroner vehicle arrive nork ambulance, though. we'll bring you more information as we get it right here as well as on twitter at abc 7 news bay area. >> good evening. >> investigators in the east bay have leads but no suspects tonight in the murder of a 19-year-old laney college student trayveon foster shot and killed in a field behind

hillside elementary school. laura anthony is there live tonight. laura? >> hi, dan. let me show you what's happening here as we speak. these are friends of trayveon foster, they're getting ready here to have a vigil for him this evening. to mourn the death. investigators say trayveon may have been killed over something as trivial as a dice game. whatever the reason his friends and coach told me today that his death is a tremendous loss. >> this is a heart break. >> a close friend says foster was a young man with a ready smile and a bright future. >> this let me know it's people out l owe that don't want to-to-see a young man doing great that have something going for they self, they're hating on them, seeing someone trying to be someone and want to bring that down. >> he was shot and killed wednesday night in the field behind hillside sch